Apple’s iPhone 5 launch held few surprises on the hardware front, thanks to the barrage of pretty-accurate leaks in the weeks leading up to the event. But now the new handset has been unveiled – as well as a new iPod touch – what are the implications for developers?

Nearly every detail of the iPhone 5 was leaked or spied before Apple’s Wednesday announcement in San Francisco. Nearly, but not all. Apple didn’t offer any astonishing one-more-thing style revelations, but it still tossed a few unexpected features into the iPhone 5.

The iPhone 5 launches into a more challenging field of competitors than ever, and to give you some context about the iPhone 5 specifications compared with those of its chief competitors, we put the most important characteristics of each into this handy table.

The iPhone 5 has been officially unveiled tonight in San Francisco and London by new CEO Tim Cook and senior vice-president Phil Schiller, above right. They confirmed the new phone (pictured centre) has a four-inch display - a half-inch increase on the iPhone 4s (left). One of the most innovative features announced so far is the new Panoramic picture mode (right), which stitches a series of eight-megapixel images together to create a 28-megapixel masterpiece. But for previous iPhone owners, the rumoured ‘docking connector’ re-design is true - meaning all your old accessories will either be obsolete, or they will need an Apple adapter to work again.

The mobile phone rumour mill must be stockpiling thunder. Nokia had its thunder well and truly stolen by accurate rumours ahead of its announcements last week, and now Apple. Almost everything new and exciting about the iPhone 5, we knew already, making it feel just that little bit less new and less exciting.

Depending on your perspective, Apple launches are either magic shows or the Nuremberg rallies of tech. Either way, the figure head that pulled the rabbit out of the hat (or got the troops marching) disappeared when Steve Jobs died last year. Many commentators suggested that Apple’s events – and in turn, its products – would suffer significantly once he was not around to mesmerise with his famous intensity, dubbed the Reality Distortion Field.